February tech jobs numbers paint a complicated picture

Nothing about tech jobs over the past year has been easy to predict, a trend that continued in February when a complicated, contradictory picture emerged from federal data.

First, the bad news: National unemployment rose slightly to 4.4% as the US economy lost around 92,000 positions. With potential oil shock from the US-Israel war with Iran on its way, the rate could climb.

The tech industry offers a more hopeful, albeit mixed, picture. According to an analysis from tech training and certification company CompTIA, tech unemployment bumped up slightly to 3.8% from January’s 3.6%. But that was tempered by a 60,000-position increase in tech occupations across the economy, along with a 9% surge in active tech job postings to over 505,000.

Changing spaces. Not everyone sees it that way, however. In a blog posting, placement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted that with 11,039 tech job losses in February, some 33,330 positions in the sector have disappeared in 2026 so far. That’s a year over year increase of 51%.

Analysts from ZipRecruiter and Indeed told Business Insider on March 6 that the state of tech employment in the US is a major cause for concern. The industry, according to economist Joseph Politano, is “losing jobs again at one of the most rapid rates of the last 20 years.” Politano also noted in a post on X that the industry lost around 12,000 jobs in February.

Move on out. There may be a way out for tech workers in the US—it just requires getting a visa, leaving the country, and learning a new set of regulations. Europe is still hiring for tech positions, where the dreaded AI-powered job losses have not yet materialized. According to a March 4 study from the European Central Bank, “in terms of job creation and destruction, we find no significant difference between businesses that report using AI and those that don’t.” Those companies that use it frequently are 4% more likely to take on additional staff, the bank’s report found.

Researchers Laura Lebastard and David Sondermann pointed out that the disconnect between US and European reactions to AI could change, but for now, companies in Europe using the technology are expected to continue to hire.

“Some firms are hiring additional employees—perhaps because they are looking to develop and implement AI technologies while maintaining their existing production processes, or because AI is a way to help them scale up more quickly,” the authors wrote.